


Help Thy Neighbor

by Brate



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2014-04-01
Packaged: 2018-01-17 19:51:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1400371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brate/pseuds/Brate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winchesters get a call for help, but it's not the situation they expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Help Thy Neighbor

With most of his attention on avoiding idiotic drivers, Dean could barely understand what the girl was saying between the sniffing and wailing. He finally figured out she was asking for help, but nothing else was distinguishable. 

Finally, he held the phone out to Sam. "You deal."

Sam took the phone from him with a confused look and held it to his ear. Two seconds later his bewildered look turned into a _WTF?_ look, and he started repeating "Calm down" in a mollifying voice. It seemed work as well as Dean expected it would.

From the lack of coherent conversation, the lady wasn't appeased. 

Dean edited out the steady drone of soothing sounds, concentrating on the road before him. 

Sam's "We'll be there as soon as we can" brought his attention back.

"What the hell was that?" Dean asked when Sam hung up.

"I have no idea. What little I could understand was that she's at the end of her rope and doesn't know what else to do. She got your number from Randy, who knows Miles, and was hoping we could help her." 

"Help her do what?"

Sam shrugged. "I'm guessing we go and find out?" He said it as a question.

"So where is this chick?" Dean paused. "It was a chick, right? That would be really scary if that was a dude."

"Her name was Paige… I think. Couldn't really understand through the sobs."

"So where's she live?"

"'Bout two hours away."

"Lucky."

"Yeah...lucky."

*****

Dean parked the Impala and peered across Sam at the house. "This it?"

"If I understood her address right, it is."

"Okay." Dean shrugged, getting out of the car. "She already knows what we do, and she seemed pretty freaked, so I say we go in packing."

"Agreed."

They each took a salt-loaded shotgun and a pistol from the trunk, and walked up the stairs of the wraparound porch. Sam raised his hand to knock on the front door, but Dean grabbed it before he could connect. 

"What?" Sam asked.

"Just in case you misheard the sobbing, hysterical lady, we might want to conceal the weaponry."

"Oh." Sam looked down and nodded. "Good idea."

They put the shotguns under their jackets before Sam knocked on the door.

A flurry of footsteps sounded, the door flew open, and a tiny blonde flung herself at Sam and latched on tight. 

"I'm so glad you're here; I don't what else to do!" she cried.

Sam patted her shoulder awkwardly and sent a beseeching look to Dean.

Unfortunately, Dean had had time to get over his initial surprise, and simply cackled in amusement. Sam's stilted body language was screaming "uncomfortable."

Dean figured they had the right house, so he took out his shotgun and looked around for a target.

Sam maneuvered the woman to a bench on the porch. "I'm Sam Winchester. This is my brother, Dean."

"Hey," Dean said with a little wave.

"I'm guessing you're Paige?"

"Yeah." She sniffed. "Paige Turley."

"And you got our name from Randy..." Sam prompted. 

"Uh-huh." Then she burst into tears again.

Dean was thinking he owed Randy a special thank you. One that would explode.

"I bought the house three months ago. It was fine at first, then it happened a few times, and now it's all the time and I don't know what to do anymore." She burst into tears again. 

"Can you tell us what's happening?" Sam asked, trying to get a handle on the situation. 

"I can do better than that. I'll show you!" Paige stood up abruptly, and motioned for the boys to follow. 

The brothers readied their weapons.

She led them into the living room and pointed. 

Both boys looked around warily, shotguns sweeping from side to side. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. In fact, everything was excessively neat. This was obviously a home where everything had a place—and everything seemed to be in it.

"Well...?" She spread her arms wide.

"Um," Sam said, lowering his gun slightly, "the lamp is broken?"

"No, of course not! Can't you tell?! The couch is seven inches from where it should be, and my CDs are in alphabetical order!"

"And that's bad," Sam ventured.

"The ghost moved them—they're supposed to be in chronological order!"

"Oh, obviously," Dean deadpanned.

She showed them the rest of the house, room by room, telling them exactly what has been misplaced: the plates were where the bowls should be, the books ordered by author not genre, pieces of furniture in the "wrong" position.

"But nothing's been broken?" Dean asked. "You haven't been hurt?"

"I've been hurt _emotionally_ ," Paige said scathingly. And then, more tears.

Sam tried to comfort her again, but he now wore his _Help me! What the fuck do we do?_ expression. 

"Okay. Is there someplace you can stay while we research the house's history to figure out who the ghost might be?"

"Oh, I know who it is," Paige said.

The brothers exchanged a look.

"What do you mean you know?" Sam asked slowly.

"The people who lived here before me told me all about her."

"Wait." Dean asked, incredulous, "You knew there was a ghost before you moved in?" 

"Of course. I was glad for it at first," Paige said. "I don't know if you gentlemen noticed, but I'm very particular."

"We've noticed," they chorused.

"Well, the last owners told me the ghost was very helpful in keeping things nice and neat. Unfortunately, she is dead-set in her ways..."

Dean valiantly swallowed a snort at the unintentional pun.

"...and she'll only put things away where she thinks they belong, not where I want them to go."

"Do you happen to have the family's contact information?" Sam asked.

"Oh, sure." Paige nodded. She hunted through her desk, then handed Sam a piece of paper. "They're over on Oakbridge."

"Is there somewhere you can go while we take care of this?" Dean asked again.

She shook her head. "Oh, I'm staying here. You guys just figure out how to get rid of this pest."

They were heading to the door when Sam stopped and pointed at something above the entranceway. "If you don't mind me asking, that doesn't seem to fit with the rest of your decor." 

"Oh, that," Paige sighed. "I think the last owners left it here. I've tried throwing it out a few times, but you-know-who always retrieves it from the trash and hangs it back up. I've learned to ignore it."

"Hmm," Sam said in a _significant_ tone.

Dean took a closer look, trying to figure out what was so interesting. The item was a framed, old-fashioned counted cross-stitch stating, "Home is Where the Heart Is." Yeah, it didn't exactly match with the more modern furnishings in the rest of the house.

"We'll go see the..." Sam looked down at the paper and read, "...Johnsons, and let you know what we find out."

"Great." Paige practically pushed them out the door with a wave. "Good luck!"

*****

They decided to speak to the Johnsons face-to-face. Luckily, it was still early enough in the evening, they didn't feel too much remorse about knocking on the family's door. 

It was only a few seconds before the door opened, revealing a woman in her mid-thirties, carrying a baby on her hip. Dean heard the sounds of another child in the next room. 

The woman looked at them questioningly. "Yes?"

"Hello, my name is Sam, this is Dean. We're friends of Paige Turley, the woman who bought your old house."

She broke into a pleased smile. "I remember Paige. What can I do for you?"

"She told us that you...um...well..."

Dean took over; he didn't want to spend the next year waiting for Sammy to figure out how to break it to her gently. "Paige said you sold her a house with a ghost in it."

She surprised the hell out of him when she nodded and said, "We sure did. Is something wrong?"

"You really knew about the ghost?" Sam asked skeptically. 

Good, at least Dean wasn't alone in his shock.

"Of course. We loved the ghost." A shout from inside the house caught her attention. "If you gentlemen would like to come in while I feed the kids, I can tell you more about it."

"If you wouldn't mind, that'd be great," Sam agreed.

She led the way to the kitchen. "Would you like anything to drink?"

Sam shook his head. "No, thank you, ma'am."

"Please call me Sandy. This here is Jesse," she said, bouncing the baby, "and you're about to meet his big brother Jeremy." She set the baby into a highchair and gave him a bottle, then she collected a plate of food, put it on the table in front of a booster chair, and called her older son. As soon as she settled him in front of his meal, he started eating, seemingly unfazed by two large strangers in his house. 

Dean wasn't sure what to think about that.

Once both children were occupied, Sandy ruffled Jeremy's head and turned to the Winchesters. "So, what would you like to know?"

"Do you actually know who the ghost is?" Sam asked.

"Yes, it's my Great Aunt Betty."

"How do you know?" Dean asked.

"Aunt Betty lived in that house for over sixty years. When she died, I inherited it. We lived there for...about five years or so, I'd say." Sandy smiled, reminiscing. "She kept the place so nice, washed dishes, picked stuff up. She even helped me with Jeremy."

Dean cleared his throat. "Can I ask why you moved out, then?"

"It wasn't an easy decision." She frowned. "We really didn't want to leave her. But when I had my second child, the house was just too small to hold all of us. But I made sure Paige knew all about Aunt Betty and would appreciate her as much as we did."

"Yeah, well, um...there's a problem with that," Sam said.

"What?"

"I guess your aunt likes things a certain way," Sam said, "and it's not the way Paige likes them, so she's very unhappy." 

"She no longer wants..." Dean tried to think of a gentle way to say it. "...a roommate." 

Sandy started tearing up. "I had no idea. I feel awful."

Yeah, Dean wouldn't want to be the person who foisted a ghost on someone else.

"Poor Aunt Betty," Sandy said. 

Dean choked on his tongue. "Oh, sure. Poor Betty." 

"If there was only some way to bring her here," she continued, "I would do it in an instant."

"Sorry, we can't—" Dean started. 

"There might be a way," Sam interrupted. "Did your aunt happen to like cross-stitching?" 

*****

"You really think this is going to work, Sammy?"

"We have to try. I really don't want to salt and burn a nice old lady who just wants to take care of people." They were standing in the middle of Paige's living room. Sam had pulled the sampler off the wall and was holding it in front of him. "My guess is she's attached to the house. If we can get her to glom onto this instead..."

"Yeah, I don't exactly relish torching her either." Dean was usually the first person to want to take out the baddie, but this one had him stepping on the brakes. He figured if the ghost hadn't become violent after months of dealing with Paige, it was a pretty safe bet she'd stay on the Casper the friendly side of the spectrum.

Paige was staying in the kitchen at the brothers' request. They didn't want her inadvertently messing up the plan by scaring away or pissing off granny. 

"Okay, dude, hit it." Dean clapped his hands together.

"Why do I have to do it?" 

"Because it's your genius plan, genius."

Sam huffed. "Fine." He cleared his throat. "Betty," he called out, "I was talking to your great niece, Sandy, and she'd love you to come and live with her family in their new house. They miss you a lot. If you attach yourself to your cross-stitch, we can take you to her right now."

They waited a long beat. Nothing happened. 

"Do you think it worked?" Dean whispered.

Sam shrugged. "I have no idea." The frame wiggled in his hand. "Then again, I think it might've."

"Okay, let's go before she changes her mind."

*****

Dean pressed harder on the gas pedal, hoping to get away a little faster. For a case that had lasted less than a day, it seemed to have stretched on forever. "I can't believe that worked."

"Yeah, I would've bet against us." Sam beat a rhythm on his leg. "You did leave our contact number, just in case, right?"

Smirking, Dean said, "I left my number with the Johnsons. I gave yours to Paige. I don't want to be fielding anymore sobbing phone calls."

Sam groaned. "Gee, thanks. She was kinda hot, though. I'm surprised you didn't try to make time with her."

"No way, dude. Crazy trumps hot every time." Dean shuddered. He was quiet for a few minutes listening to the music. "I just can't believe we helped a ghost _move_."

"Yeah, not our finest hour."

"I vote we not tell Bobby about this one."

"Seconded."


End file.
